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Lesson 4
Embedded Questions 
Objective: Students will understand and use embedded questions. 
Lesson Contents 
Note to the Teacher 
Power Point Slides 
Practice Exercises 
Homework Exercise 
Answer Key 
Note to the Teacher 
Embedded questions are not really reported questions, but their structure is similar, so they 
are often taught along with the topic of reported questions. 
An embedded question is a question that is inside a sentence. For example, “Do you know 
what time the bus comes?” is an embedded question. If asked directly, the question would 
be, “What time does the bus come?” You can see the two structures are different. The 
embedded question now has the same structure as a statement in English. Talk about 
confusing for students! And indeed many students will say, “Do you know what time does 
the bus come?” The main thing to stress to students is that embedded questions use English 
statement word order – subject + verb and there are no auxiliaries. In addition, they should 
pay attention to subject-verb agreement, which normally isn’t a problem with direct 
questions. The direct question, “What does Bill teach?” becomes, “Do you know what Bill 
teaches?” To make the switch accurately, you must drop the auxiliary, “do,” use S+V 
word order, and make “teach” agree with the singular Bill.
 
PP1 What is an embedded question? 
An embedded question is a question that is inside another sentence. It can be inside a 
statement or a question.
 
Inside a statement 
I don’t know what time the meeting starts. 
I can’t remember what time the meeting starts. 
 
Inside a question 
Can you tell me what time the meeting starts? 
Do you know what time the meeting starts?